Team Solaris interview
By Shibi Kiran

The Veolia World Solar Challenge is one of the most high profile solar power events.  The Challenge is to build a car that runs on the power of the sun and then drive it 3000 Kilometers across Australia.  The race which took place in Oct, 2011 had attracted a number of teams with multi million dollar budgets. For the first time, India participated in this global solar tech race. 

Top 3 positions were taken by Japan, Netherlands and USA.  Even though the Indian team had only 1 percent of the budgets of the biggest teams, bravely they gave it their best shot and gained valuable knowledge for future races.

Techgoss caught up with the Indian Team Solaris from the Delhi Technological University

Techgoss (TG): What are Indian Solar Car Team's goals?  How did you get together?
Team Solaris: We aim at developing Solar Automobile Technology in a cost effective way. As the conventional sources of energy are fast depleting, we need to develop low cost and efficient green technology in order to encourage the common man to switch to the Renewable Sources of Energy.

Ultimately, we aim to develop a commercial solar car for the masses. We started off with the development of a racing solar car in order to gain knowledge and experience.

The team is a bunch of University students who wanted to do things differently. The team was started by our seniors in college and they selected us for the World Solar Challenge Team. We further conducted tests to recruit students from different branches. In our team we grow in knowledge through sharing our experiences with each other.

TG: You have had success in the past. Where are have you raced before you went to Australia?
Team Solaris:  The team had participated in The 2008 South African Solar Challenge and fared well with our seniors travelling to South Africa.

TG: How big was the team that you had in this Australian race?
Team Solaris: There were 13 team members from different engineering interests viz. mechanical, electrical and electronics.

TG: Some of teams in Australia had multi-million dollar budgets?  What kind of funding did you manage on?
Team Solaris: We interacted with teams like Michigan, MIT, Aurora etc. and their project cost was very high. We managed to develop the car in USD 10,000 with support from companies like Indosolar, Maharishi solar etc. A large part of the funding was borne by the University. However, in India there is still lack of support from the Industry. Automobile companies like Ford, Honda need to provide technical and financial support in India as well so that technology can be developed more efficiently.

TG: What was your experience in the Australian race?  How did it help in your learning / knowledge experiences for the future?
Team Solaris: There was a lot to learn for us at The 2011 World Solar Challenge, since we were participating for the first time. We faced many problems, mostly logistic in nature. We interacted with other teams and learnt the way they apply knowledge to the practical world. We tried to learn racing strategies, organisation and above all shared technical knowledge with Team Aurora, Principia Solar Team and others. There were a few people who had worked as engineers and professors and we tried to grasp their style of work.

TG: How soon before we Indians start using Solar cars?  Are there some Indian States / companies in India which are doing better than others in using Solar energy?
Team Solaris: Solar cars have to go a long way before they can be launched in the Indian Market. The government is supporting Solar Energy under The Jawahar Lal Nehru Solar Mission. We need the Indian automobile sector to show more interest in hybrid technologies. Also, designing solar cars for Indian conditions is a daunting task. Some states like Gujarat and Rajasthan are developing fast on the solar energy power plant concept.

(The Solar Team consists of Mohd Bilal, Prateek Jain, Vaibhav Arora, Shashank Tayal, Biyani Sagar Anil, Anshul Kumar, Vivek Kumar, Desai Parth Ravindra, Dhiraj Mishra, Jaspreet Singh, Bharat Kumar Jha, Rohit Gupta, Kritikaa Arora, Saurav Das, Ashutosh Singh and Dr. Janardan Prasad Kesari)